Ramzan’s mother refuses India’s help in travelling to Bhopal

Karachi: The mother of 15-year-old Ramzan, reportedly a Pakistani national currently with an NGO in Bhopal, today declined India’s offer of assistance to her in travelling to the country to identify her son.

Well known Pakistani human rights activist Ansar Burney, who is representing Razia Begum, told the media here that she has refused External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s offer of assistance in travelling to India.

Razia Begum was offered assistance in visiting India and meeting and identifying her son but she has turned it down, Burney said.

She has her own reasons for doing so, Burney said without elaborating.

Swaraj had tweeted last week that in case Pakistan is ready to accept Ramazan, Indian government will send him back.

The boy is currently with an NGO in Bhopal after efforts to send him to Karachi could not be fructify due to lack of papers to prove his Pakistani citizenship.

Ramzan’s story is similar to that of Geeta’s.

Geeta, a deaf and mute girl who had accidentally crossed over to Pakistan over a decade ago, returned to India from Pakistan last week.

Razia has not seen her son since he was eight years old when he was taken away to Bangladesh by his father in 2008.

The Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan TCA Raghavan also met with Razia last week and assured her she would get a visa to go to India to meet her son.

Razia has two children — Ramazan and a girl — and in 2004, her husband divorced her and later remarried and took away the children to Bangladesh.

Ramazan reportedly fed up with the cruelty of his father and stepmother crossed into India in the hope of getting back to Pakistan but has since then remained stranded in India.